r although boasting a long and intimate
acquaintance with both, I have never arrived at any certain conclusion
as to their good or ill effects, though I have little doubt but that
they contain a mixture of each, only I am uncertain which may
preponderate.

The former might be profitable, both to the fagger and the fagged, did
it not commence and finish at the wrong end; for could a boy be well
fagged from the age of fourteen to eighteen, he would probably be all
the better for it, but during this period he is unfortunately the
despot. Many persons conclude that the system acts beneficially on the
youthful members of the aristocracy; but I think the same end might be
attained, and more respectably, by the mere jostling amid the crowd,
without proceeding to the extremity of subjecting a boy of gentlemanly
feeling, to the coarse caprices of a tradesman's son. I have myself
_requested_ the present Marquis of D----e to walk into the
playing-fields each evening, with a slop-basin in his hand, and milk
an unusually quiet cow that used to be there; but this office fell to
his lot, merely from his being the only boy in my dames who knew how
to milk a cow--in fact, it was his boast that he could milk a cow
better than any man in England. Lord C----stl----h too, must well
remember when a great wild, raw-boned Irish fellow, with a rope round
his waist, would throw himself from Lion's Leap into the river, by
way of learning to swim, while his lordship was appointed to pull him
out again; but the particular time that I now mean was, when he was
all but drowned, and vociferating with Hibernian vehemence, "pull, you
blackguard!" every time his head emerged for a moment from the bottom
of the river. But whatever effects this levelling process may have in
youthful days, I suspect that they are by no means permanent, and are
completely obliterated on leaving the school.

With regard to the punishment of flogging, many persons condemn it, as
degrading to a boy's character. These same persons would, probably,
deem it out of place to raise their hats on entering a man's shop, and
perhaps every one would feel it to be so in England; but in other
countries, were they not to do so, the shopkeeper, from experience,
would merely attribute the omission to what he deems an instance of
ill-breeding, habitual to John Bull; or, when he is not aware of this,
he will frequently decline to accommodate his customer. I mention this
instance to show, that